In what could make proceedings more difficult for former RG Kar Medical College Principal Sandip Ghosh a single-judge Bench of Calcutta High Court on Friday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate the charges of corruption against him.
While delivering the verdict Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj directed the CBI to take possession of all the relevant documents by 10 am on Saturday. With the judgment the previous order of the State Home Department constituting a Special Investigation Team of senior IPS officers to investigate the charges against him becomes infructuous, lawyers said. The said SIT would not be required to handover all the documents in its possession to the CBI.
Though Ghosh had moved a Division Bench challenging the order there was no report of his appeal being immediately admitted as the higher Bench of Justice Harish Tandon had asked for the order copy to be placed before it first.
Ghosh was presently being grilled almost on a daily basis by the CBI in the wake of an earlier order in the rape and murder case of a postgraduate lady doctor of the RGKMCH.
A petition was earlier filed before the Bench of Justice Bharadwaj by a former Deputy Superintendant of the Hospital Akhtar Ali who had brought a plethora of corruption charges against Ghosh. "I am happy that the honourable High Court has seen merit in my case by allowing my petition and ordering a CBI investigation," Ali said alleging how Ghosh ever since his joining the office three years ago had "indulged in all kinds of corrupt practices from including smuggling of unclaimed corpses, bio-medical wastes, extracting money from students by failing them first and then passing them, forming an unholy nexus with a trading company outside the hospital owned by some politically influential person.
The petitioner had earlier demanded an investigation either by the Enforcement Directorate or the CBI. Ali's lawyer Tarun Jyoti Tewari said that "it is an order for the CBI investigation but it will not prejudice my stand as ED is bound to come as a scheduled entry much like in other cases of similar merit."
Ali, who was the hospital's deputy superintendent till 2023, said that "postgraduate students were threatened by the then Principal … they had to pay Rs 8 lakh for clearing their exams … the MBBS students had to pay RS 4 lakh for clearing their exams … money was also charged for giving 75 percent marks so that some less meritorious students could get honours."
